


Life Lines

by Bdoing, mademoisellePlume, Vinnocent



Series: Heroes and Wolves [11]
Category: Animorphs - Katherine A. Applegate, Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Blood and Gore, F/M, Phobias
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-21
Updated: 2014-07-21
Packaged: 2018-02-09 20:55:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1997454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bdoing/pseuds/Bdoing, https://archiveofourown.org/users/mademoisellePlume/pseuds/mademoisellePlume, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vinnocent/pseuds/Vinnocent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Melissa calls Braeden after Harris's body turns up. Meanwhile, Lydia, Allison, Scott, and Stiles sort over the evidence of what happened in Los Siete Santos, and Derek makes a new friend.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Life Lines

The tray of tools hit the floor with a clash. The sheriff and the coroner both turned to see Melissa standing there, shaking, eyes wide. “Dammit, McCall!” the coroner snapped. “I just cleaned those!”

Melissa shook her head, trying to shake herself back to her sense, and apologized as she bent to pick up the spilled instruments. Unfortunately, her hands were shaking too much to do a good job of it. “Melissa,” the sheriff said, stepping toward her. “Are you okay?”

“Yes, I-I’m fine,” she stuttered. She quickly gathered up the tools and took them away to be cleaned again.

Afterward, she pulled up Braeden’s number on her cellphone. “Brae-- Braeden?” she asked, kicking herself for how shaky she still sounded, but she couldn’t seem to stop the thundering in her chest, much less stem the tears brimming in her eyes.

“What happened?” Braeden’s voice demanded, instantly concerned.

“I… I think you should come to the hospital,” Melissa said as calmly as she could manage. “They found Harris.”

“Yeah, I know,” Braeden grunted. “Blunt force trauma, exsanguination, and asphyxiation all rolled in one, right?”

“Except the coroner says there was… there was trauma to his ear canal,” Melissa reported. She paused, waiting for Braeden to say something. To reassure her it couldn’t possibly be what Melissa thought it was.

“Did they say anything else about it?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Melissa said. “He said, on closer inspection, there were some remains of a substance yet to be identified. And that, if he didn’t know better, he’d think the trauma was caused by something pushing out from the inside, and he doesn’t know what could be done to make it look like that.”

“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes,” said Braeden. Nodding, Melissa almost hung up, stopped when Braeden said, “And Melissa?”

Still shaking, Melissa lifted the phone again to her ear. “Yes?”

“I meant what I said,” she said. “About leaving town.”

Melissa shook her head. “You don’t know my son very well,” she told her plainly. “And you know me even less.”

\-- --

The spare bedroom next to Lydia’s, where she normally kept all her out-of-season clothes, had become plastered in documents, photocopies, photos. Unfortunately, her house was the only place her friends could keep their project without parental interference, and, she had to admit, it wasn’t boring.

“Unfortunately, the library didn’t help a lot,” said Stiles. “I know now that there _was_ a town called ‘Los Siete Santos’ just north of here until the mid-90s, where it stopped appearing for some reason. But it was never noteworthy enough to have much written about it, though some newspapers from the 90s mention animal attacks. Then it just stopped existing.”

“You think werewolves erased a whole town from existence?” Lydia drawled.

“ _No_ ,” Stiles pouted. “I think the government covered it up for reasons having to do with either werewolves or whatever the hell an Animorph is.”

“Well, on our side of things,” said Allison. “I think, from the photos, I was able to identify Marco’s friends and some kind of timeline. I don’t know what happened in that timeline, only that you can see change.” She gestured to the wall, where she had organized photos into five lines, the first one spanning the entire length of the wall and the last one consisting of only three photos, clustered together.

“This top line is Marco,” she explained. “From childhood until disappearance. You can see he’s a pretty normal kid. Around ten or eleven, there are less photos and a larger portion of them show him being serious. His environment also changes. At this point, the house that was in many of the earlier pictures disappears. Peter, his father, disappears from the photos almost entirely, and when he’s there, he’s… not in great shape. This lasts a couple years, slowly brightening again. They then move into a better place. Peter re-emerges in better condition. But Marco doesn’t brighten. He starts gaining bags under the eyes. He starts losing weight. He’s putting less effort into his appearance during a time when kids usually start putting in more. He starts attempting to block photos with his hand.

“Then, here, there’s a wedding. There’s a few more photos of this woman, but then she and the house disappear. All these photos in the following time frame are in the forest. Every single one. There’s not one that’s not in the forest. And they’re not camping either. There’s shots of them building houses. There’s one shot of Eva Vela posing with…” Allison shrugged helplessly. “Some kind of big gun I’ve never seen before, which is saying something since my family trade is arms sales.

“Pictures stop for maybe as much as year?” she explained. “And then they come back with Marco and Melissa. Eva’s in these shots, too. In a couple, Marco’s wearing fatigues. Once, Air Force fatigues. Twice, Army fatigues. Another, Marine fatigues. These shots are always in a house, not in action, implying he’s just come back from… something.”

“But you can’t just switch around branches like that,” said Stiles. “You make one contract with one branch and follow through on that until death, expiration of contract, or retirement. Not to mention that he looks sixteen!”

“He was just a baby when this started,” Lydia said, looking through the photos on the wall. “Look at this one, the first one where he is definitely, truly exhausted. He could be as young as twelve. No older than fourteen.”

“Anyway,” Scott said. “The, uh… The photos from his time with Mom are pretty sparse. They get more numerous after I’m born. Soon after that, the uniforms disappear and he starts dressing nicer and they move to a better place. They look happy. But then the photos stop.”

“And that document at the end?” asked Stiles.

“A notice that death _in absentia_ had been filed,” said Allison. “By Ms. McCall.”

“They don’t kiss,” Lydia said.

Her friends turned to her. “What?” asked Stiles.

“They were a couple for roughly two or three years,” Lydia said, pointing to the photos. “And they looked happy. But if it weren’t for knowing they’re Scott’s parents, I’d’ve guessed they were best friends. There’s not one photo of them kissing or making doe eyes or anything.”

Stiles shrugged. “So they had a bad marriage,” he said.

“They weren’t married,” Scott reminded him. He glanced back at the photos. “And they weren’t bad. That’s what surprised me. I’d always just assumed it was, but… The photos, at least, tell a different story. Even in Eva and Peter’s photos, you can see when they’re mad at each other.”

“Maybe they were friends,” Allison guessed quietly. She then blushed. “I mean… you know… It happens sometimes. With some people. Sleeping with friends. Occasionally.”

Lydia hummed thoughtfully, peering closely at the line of photos. “If something big happened in their mid-teens, it’s possible they never got a good sex education,” she pointed out.

“Okay, yeah, I don’t want to think about that,” Scott said, making a face.

“What’s the next line?” asked Stiles, pointing.

“The rest are the friends that I think were most likely to be Animorphs,” said Allison. “The boy was the easiest connection to make. He’d been friends with Marco since childhood. I know from this birthday photo that his name is Jake. I’m also able to put together Jake’s friends and family from these photos. This early depressed period with Marco and Peter doesn’t carry over to Jake, so it didn’t have to do with him. But this time when Marco changes houses? Jake starts looking exhausted in much the same way. This is also when the blonde girl that had only been in birthday photos at Jake's house starts emerging more, now accompanied by Cassie. Blond girl has her own timeline here. Cassie has the one below that. Blondie doesn’t seem to exhaust the same way, but she starts wearing more makeup and dressing even better than she did before, purposefully stunning instead of casually cool. I think she’s trying harder to hide it. Jake, Blondie, and Cassie all also make the sudden shift to forest-only photos.”

“What about those three photos at the bottom?” Stiles asked pointing.

“That kid rarely appears,” said Allison. “But he looks like he could be related to any of them, really. And when he does appear, he’s clearly part of the group. We think there’s a possibility that he’s the sixth animorph.”

“Six?” said Lydia. “There’s five timelines here.”

“Here, in the forest photos, there’s a red-tailed hawk,” Scott explained. “It’s in over half the photos, always perched on someone’s shoulder; usually the blond girl’s. There’s even a photo of her kissing it on the top of the head.”

“But there’s no way it’s a pet,” said Allison. “First of all, it didn’t appear before then. Secondly, there’s no falconry equipment. No straps. No hood. No gloves. Nothing. By all appearances, it’s a wild hawk they totally allowed to constantly dig its talons into their bare skin.”

“We think it might be the fifth animorph,” said Scott.

Stiles made a face. “And what? He’s just always a bird?” he demanded. Allison and Scott both shrugged their shoulders.

“There was also a box of grave rubbings,” said Allison. “A few of them had notes we didn’t really understand. But we made a list of all the names and dates and engravings, as well as the notes Peter wrote on the corners.” She handed it over to Stiles, but Lydia took it, grabbed up the high school yearbook, and plopped down on the edge of the guest bed.

“Rachel, Rachel, Rachel,” she said running her finger down the list of grave rubbings. “Rachel Berenson!” She flipped to the index of the yearbook, found Rachel, and flipped to her picture. Lydia held the book out to them. “Blondie is Rachel Berenson,” she announced. “Next to her is Jake Berenson. And your mom’s at the bottom of the page.”

Stiles took the book from her and squinted at it. “What? Melissa Chapman?” he said. “Not all Melissa’s are alike, Lydia.”

Lydia sighed, reached forward, and covered up Melissa’s hair with her hands.

“Oh,” said Stiles. “I guess that explains why we couldn’t find her.”

“How come she changed her name?” Scott asked.

“I don’t know,” Lydia said, taking the book back. “The _yearbook_ doesn’t say.” She flipped to the index again. “Chapman… Oo! Hedrick! Staff…” She flipped through the book. “Hey, your mom’s dad was the vice principal.” She flipped back and forth between the index and several entries. “Huh. They’re not ever photographed together, though.” More flipping. “She was on the gymnastics team with Rachel, but Rachel never made it to photo day. There’s also photos in the collage pages of Rachel and Cassie together, but not of Rachel and Melissa.”

“Maybe they had a falling out,” said Allison.

“Yeah, it’s stressful being the only normal person in the group,” Stiles equipped.

Scott gave him a look. “And how would you know?” he teased.

“Also Hedrick headed this club, The Sharing. There’s a Tom Berenson listed in the picture, but the other Berensons and Melissa aren’t in it,” said Lydia.

“Well, not everyone gets along with their family,” said Allison.

“It’s still a weird coincidence, though,” Scott agreed.

Lydia pointed to a classmate. “This woman works at the zoo,” she said. “She has big, claw-like scars on her face. I always assumed from one of the animals, but now I’m doubting.” More flips. “Cassie certainly liked overalls as a kid.”

Stiles’s phone buzzed with a text message. He brought up the message. “Huh, Dad says evidence from Harris’s house was stolen from the station. He’s making sure it wasn’t me.” He laughed at that.

“What went missing?” asked Allison.

Stiles shrugged. “I’ll look it up later,” he promised.

\-- --

Derek walked past the apartment complex yet again. The residents there had been allowed to move in the very next day, though a few had refused to do so without _someone_ explaining _something_. Derek wanted the same thing. He needed to know _who_ had raided the apartment. He needed to know what their goal had been and whether they’d achieved it. He needed to know how the Alphas had escaped (if capturing them had even been the intention) and where they were now.

Sighing, he turned away… and ran straight into someone.

With a cry of surprise, she spilled her bags. “Sorry,” he apologized.

“No, no, it’s okay,” she said quickly, bending down to pick up her things.

“No, let me,” he said, quickly crouching in front of her. She jerked back momentarily, then smiled shyly. He held out her tote bag full of books, on which was printed “BHHS”. “You work at the school?” he asked.

She blushed and took the bag. “Yes, I’m an English teacher.”

Derek nodded. “That’s good,” he said, helping her to her feet. “I like English.”

She raised an eyebrow at him.

“I like reading English,” he tried again, then he shook his head. “I’m not making this any better, am I?”

She gave a small laugh. “I’m afraid I’d be forced to grade those statements poorly if you were one of my students,” she confessed.

“I’m glad I’m not,” he said with a small smile.

She smiled back. After a moment’s hesitation, she held out a hand to him. “I’m Jennifer,” she introduced herself.

“I--"

“WOO! DEREK! GET IT!”

Derek spun to see Erica hanging out on a nearby fire escape. His eyes glowed red at her, and, laughing, she ran away.

“I think that’s one of my students…” said Jennifer, squinting after the direction that Erica had gone.

“I definitely do not know her,” Derek grumbled, turning back to Jennifer with his eyes back to normal.

“Really?” she asked, arching that eyebrow again. “So what’s your name?”

“... It’s definitely _not_ Derek,” he said, and Jennifer laughed again.


End file.
